Shadow's first trip to the Mall
by CharlieAlphaFoxtrot
Summary: This shortstory is about a race that has existed from the beggining of time. The WolfPeople. Unbeknown to one couple their baby girl is rare even for their race. She's the first core bearer in 100years. Don't upset her;results will be...explosive.


It was a busy shopping mall. With special events happening off the ying yang here there and everywhere there was a constant flow of traffic. Robin and Fiona had to risk bringing their baby girl to town. She hadn't had her first change yet. She was two years old. Stuck as a human for a few more years yet. _At least her terrible twos could be suffered when she was in human form, _thought Fiona. After shopping till they could no longer stand Fiona and Robin had to enter Woolworths to build a supply of food for the next few months. There were three problems with that:

If Fiona and Robin who were renowned Wolf People were seen with Shadow in her human form in the trolley and she began crying (it was her first time in public, but she'd been unnaturally quiet so far) the shoppers would think Fiona and Robin had kidnapped her. Robin had a rep of being a poor child and they could not be trusted **not** to break the law.

What if she made her first change? The crowd of Wolf People who kept low pros according to the rules of the multi-cultural town would swamp her. The next human born Wolf Person. Robin kept the fact he was the same as he hoped his daughter was under the radar. It was need to know business.

The same multi-cultural rules dictated children were to be left outside the store in a trolley.

_It could be worse._ Robin thought. _She's asleep._ He told the shop assistant behind the register closest to Shadow to watch her in case anybody tried to take her. "You must be a Wolf Person sir," "Yes. Indeed I am. What seems to be the problem?" "Oh nothing that you'd want to hear. She'll be okay. It's just that your kind is rumoured to be the most trusting race. More and more of your kind are beginning to think us, as humans can't be trusted. I know myself that Idols are not descending from the trees as often as they did when I was a kid here sir. They seem to think Wolf People are crazy handing out trust like spare change and humans mean no good," "I know a few Idols myself. They aren't the most trusting. Their religions won't allow them to breed with humans. They are moral. They don't want to mix. My wife and I are some of the last pure Wolf People you see," "Robin!" Fiona croaked, "Are we going to start sometime this week?" "We'll have to catch up again sir. My register is always open for you," "Thank you," "No thank you sir. Have a pleasant day,"

Baby Shadow was a sleep in the bottom of the green Woolworths trolley, innocent on her side, sucking her thumb and hugging Freebie close under that elbow while her other arm acted as a pillow for her head. Suddenly she woke up. She couldn't see mummy or daddy anywhere. She stood up, sliding the helium balloon that had been slip know tied to the handle of the trolley aside. _It's okay. They'll be back,_ she thought. Minutes passed. She was hungry. The weird cashier closest to her was looking back at her as she worked. The cashier waved with a smile and Shadow nodded, curling up again with Freebie hugged to her chest. The little brown horse with black buttons for eyes would keep her company. Shadow couldn't get comfortable. Suddenly two silverly haired elderly men walked over to her trolley. "Coo chi coo," They laughed amongst themselves. They were Jehovah witnesses. One with the most wrinkles and a Russian accent pinched Shadow's cheek. She cried. At the leering shapes and the strange smells. "Shh baby. We're friends," The other whispered. "Oy! Leave that child alone sirs. She's a Wolf Person. She may bite," The cashier ran out from behind her register scaring Shadow. She'd had a building stranger danger feeling in the pit of her stomach. Shadow closed her eyes and shielded Freebie with one arm. The cashier turned her head expecting the little girl's parents to be ready to rip off her head. They were allowed to if they thought for one minute she was endangered and there was nothing the law could do as they were the native race.

Fiona and Robin heard the explosion and saw the light. They could smell acidic smoke, taste copper in their mouths and they could hear the crackling of exposed wires. They dropped their baskets and ran. They only had to run up the freezer section to notice half the shop was raining down like a handful of dirt thrown into the air. Bushels of flowers originally from water filled buckets at the newsagent front and DVDS were scattered like javelins, spearing out of walls and the ceiling. Luckily Fiona and Robin had wolf vision to see in the darkness. All the customers and staff were smeared with broken spines, collarbones, necks, arms, ribs, legs and pelvis's depending on how close they had been to the source of the explosion. Milk and liquid pumpkin pulp were oozing down the cracks in the ATM and register. Frightened customers who had been in the same untouched sections as Robin and Fiona emerged and gasped. The Jehovah witness were no more than two craters beside the over turned trolley. The helium balloon Robin had slip knotted to the handle was bumping against the roof like a drunken bee eager to get out of the hive. "Shadow! Where's our baby Robin?" Fiona cried into his shoulder. He patted her shoulder. "Dada?" Came a sniffle and Shadow crawled out on her hands and knees from underneath the register. Her knees were bloodied from the glass shards that had exploded from the Seafood deli. "Yes baby. Come here. Nothing's going to hurt you. I won't ever let go of you again," Robin smiled, hugging her. Shadow held Freebie out to her mother. Her leg had been torn off. "I'll fix her before dinner. Where's the checkout chick?" "I was unconscious under the bakery trolley, mam. It flew through the air like it was attracted to a giant magnet. It was headed for your daughter so I stood between it to slow it down a little. All the baked goods are all charcoaled black in a pile over there. Your daughter began crying on me. A strange silver stuff and next thing I know all I've got is this gash on my stomach. I feel brand new,"

Fiona let Robin hold Shadow. They hadn't gotten around to getting a car seat for their daughter. "What are you thinking about?" Robin reached up and made sure he pulled the seatbelt down over him and his daughter who was asleep on his lap with Freebie. Freebie's leg sat on the dashboard. "Oh, it's probably nothing," "You've got one of those frowns on your face," Fiona lent on the open car door of her driver side. The carpark was practically empty. Only freaks like them were allowed to use the underground parking. "I was thinking about a two hundred year old tale about Salem. Have you heard of it?" "No I don't think I have. Do you care to enlighten me?" "Sure. I'll give you the shortest version that humans hear. Read this passage," Robin flicked the pages, "this one and these two right here."

Fiona got home. With help from her husband, Shadow who ran around wrapped head to toe in the toilet paper like a mummy and Freebie who fell into one of the bags unloaded the shopping into its correct places. Robin went upstairs to clean Shadow before Dinner. Fiona sat down to read the book Robin had given her. The title was in Wolf Person Language. In English it translated to: **Herpintite ****Myths and Legends.** Great start. Fiona made herself comfortable with the feeling she'd be in that one spot for a while.

Sometime after the creation of the world and the making of the first humans The Golden Wolf vanished. This legend of Salem begins after the battle of Silver Fang and Rainbow Claws. The story goes that a pair who had travelled around the world trading to make their living walked into town with a stranger blue and silver power the size of a softball tucked under one arm. The person Salem called Master was a reckless sort. He boasted in a bar one to the Herpintite villagers in Hide Away of what this had done when provoked. The strange ball had fallen to Earth in a meteorite. Salem was about twenty. He'd come from Hide Away. He held onto the power and stayed in a hotel room away from the bar. Several a night Master would come back to the hotel with the escort of some giggly Herpintite girls that had fixed Master's injuries throughout the night. The girls only spoke Herpintite, not a word of English. Salem became the interpreter. One night Salem and Master decided too many people had become power crazy trying to find this power and they made a plan to hide it on the bottom of the lake in a submersed rum cellar The Golden Wolf voice in his head told Salem about. They wouldn't make the return to see their treasure remained lost. It was twelve kilometres deep. Salem, that winter night beside the lake stripped off his warm clothes down to his tee and jeans and wrapped the removed articles around the source to weigh it down so it sank and disguise the light it gave off. _You want to live through this Salem to make sure it never falls into the wrong hands? You've been a good host. I can spare you and Master this once if your promise to forget the power source. If you come looking for it you will die,_ Salem agreed. He didn't tell Master. The Golden Wolf also told him it would go missing and he would hide it as if it had never existed.

The dive went off without a hitch. Months passed. One night Salem followed Master to the pub. He'd finally learnt to relax with that power source out of his life. No more sleepless nights wondering if someone would stab him and steal the power source from his satchel. "Hey!" Master slurred one night and swigged down another tall glass of full strength beer. "I'm gonna make this bet interesting for all you dirty half mongrels," _No._ Salem thought. _Never call Wolf People dirty half mongrels._ He knew that being a Herpintite himself while the Master was human. Easy mistake no Herpintite would accept. "You calling us different? What's your stakes pretty boy?" "I can offer you something beyond comprehension. I don't even know what it's capable of. A power source like no other. It came from the stars and crashed into the pine forests in Georgia. My servant and I hid it at the deepest point in the lake," "Pardon. He's ill. Too many tall ones," Salem interjected. "Out of the road bilge rat. We saw you and this coot sneaking off. Who reckons we see it before we accept?" "I can offer you something that's real. I'm a local. You can have my life in place," Salem bartered. Out of seventeen that dived only three came up again. One of them died a week later from Hypothermia. "Nothing there," Salem was stoned out of town. When they ran out of stones they used rotten fruit and veg crawling with maggots, Salem could still feel crawling across his skin and through his hair many baths later.

Salem and the Master kept travelling. In the battle Salem supposedly died in he went undercover, returning to Hide Away and he lived with a pregnant Herpintite single lady who spoke half Herpintite half English. Salem worked for his keep, not telling the lady who he really was. One day the lady came back from the bakery carrying more than bread. "Help me. You've travelled loads," She wept. "My son isn't normal. You must have seen something like this. I sure can't describe it," The baby was reaching out because he was hungry. Salem agreed he'd try to. The lady left the room, ignoring the child and he began to glow with a blue and silver aurora Salem had only seen once before. The power source! He tried to cheer the child up and searched it sheets. Had he swallowed it? There was a blinding flash and Salem was glad the baby boy was now in his arms. The bottom of his cot had been blown out and so had a hole into the solid dirt under the house for about Salem's height. Thus, the first core bearer with the power source inside its chest cavity to replace its heart was born. These cores have ten times the input and output of a normal heart and brain combined. When the mother tried getting it cut out every method they tried was ineffective.

"Impressive huh?" Fiona screamed and jumped when a hand fell on her shoulder. "Oh Robin! You startled me," Robin laughed. "That was a thousand years ago. What The Golden Wolf said to me when our daughter was born is true. She's the leader of the legendary team that will bring our kind into a new era and out of the darkness," "The Golden Wolf came to you? Why didn't you say that earlier?" "I wasn't sure of it myself,"


End file.
